Wednesday, January 15, 2014

SOL Reform

When Governor McAuliffe was running for governor, he made
SOL assessment reform a plank in his platform.The notion was well received, and his opponent said, “Me too.”Now every member of the General Assembly is
on the bandwagon, and most of them have an SOL bill.So, what is VEA’s position?This is the message we will be conveying to
legislators:

There is broad support
for reforming the Standards of Learning assessments.Numerous SOL reform bills are now before the
2014 General Assembly.

The Virginia Education
Association supports SOL reform, and we urge that legislators consider the
complexity of this issue.

The General Assembly
should move forward by defining the broad goals that should be encompassed in
SOL testing reform:

·reduction
in the number of tests

·assessment
of higher order thinking skills

·greater
local flexibility in regard to timing and content.

Having established
these goals, we believe the General Assembly should work with the
administration to create a commission including legislators, Board of Education
members, parents, and educational
practitioners to devise a testing system that best serves Virginia's students.